


Access Code: Shooting Star

by MagnetDude



Category: Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types, SSSS.Gridman (Anime), 流星のロックマン | Mega Man Star Force, 電光超人グリッドマン | Denkou Choujin Gridman
Genre: Adaptation, Character Study, F/M, Hero vs Kaiju action, Pseudoscience, Tsundere on Tsundere Action, only as much angst as canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26933629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnetDude/pseuds/MagnetDude
Summary: Hoshikawa Subaru is supposed to be a hero, but he doesn’t look or act the part. When a certain Hyper Agent crosses his path, he finds the courage to accept his role. What he doesn’t find, however, is the grace to act it out properly. Updates every Friday.
Relationships: Hoshikawa Subaru | Geo Stelar/Shirogane Luna | Luna Platz
Kudos: 2





	1. boys invent great hero

**Author's Note:**

> Foreword: While playing through Star Force, it occurred to me one day that I was basically playing a Gridman video game, and so I felt compelled to write this crossover. I am more familiar with the Star Force games and their localizations, but I have used the original names to be more consistent with the Gridman names. Do note that this mostly uses the original Gridman tokusatsu as its basis, although there are a few things from SSSS here. This is primarily a sort of juxtaposition of the two original stories, with the intent on contrasting the characters of Subaru and Takeshi. There are some divergances throughout, though nothing too big til around chapter 8. You don’t have to be a fan of the Subaru/Luna pairing to enjoy this, but it would probably help. They have a LOT of interaction in the first game, which I am adapting. I'm happy to reply to any reviews or comments, so please, write in.

It is the year 220X.  
Advances in electronmagnetic (EM) wave technology have changed the way people interact with the world. Going beyond the simple networks of the internet of centuries past, EM waves can materialize in the real world and have become fully integrated into peoples’ lives. But… the wave technology that humans take for granted has a more complex relationship with them than they could ever imagine…

* * *

Chapter 1: boys invent great hero

Dream Island, Electopia

Baba Ippei was rooting around in the junkyard. Surely there had to be a part there. Who knew what strange treasures may lie in the networks of yesteryear? There was only one way to find out.

“Naoto, you help too!” Ippei called, waving over his friend.

Shou Naoto came over. He was an average looking Electopian high schooler with wavy black hair, dressed in basic slacks and a jacket. He was also grumbling about the smell, getting his clothes dirty and other things.

“Can’t we pay someone to do this for us?” he asked.

“Only we know what we’re looking for,” Ippei said. “No one ever accomplished a dream without getting their hands dirty. Ah! Check this out!”

Ippei pulled something out of an enormous pile. It was a small, square-shaped device. He rubbed some of the dust off. The letters “P.E.T” became visible.

* * *

Kodama, Electopia

It was another starry night at Vista Point. If one looked closely, the constellation Leo was visible. The young Hoshikawa Subaru really liked looking at those stars. They were one of the few things he could trust. No matter how many cloudy nights were out, the stars would always come back to see him again, greeting him like an old friend.

Today, Subaru had a new way of looking at things. A friend of his father, Amachi Mammoru, had stopped by his house that day and passed on a pair of special green glasses. Subaru looked up at the sky, wearing the glasses. Bright orange translucent roads weaved throughout the atmosphere. It was nice to actually get to see these “wave roads” that carried all the information in the world.

He had to admit, the sky was prettier without the roads. But… these glasses, called the “Visualizer” by Mr. Amachi, were a memento of Subaru’s father. Hoshikawa Daigo, an extremely talented astronaut and scientist, had been missing for three years following an accident at the Space Station Peace. Subaru knew that his dad would have wanted him to see this. These roads, these endless possibilities, these links between spaces and people…

“Might want to look a bit closer to the ground if you want to keep your head, kid,” a gruff voice said.

Subaru’s eyes darted downwards and settled upon a strange floating creature. It had a reptilian face and chest, but spewed blue fire out of its back and where its torso would be. The same blue fire connected its body to two burning hands. Subaru stepped back, gaping.

“I see you appreciate how strong I am,” the creature said, leaning inwards. “The name’s Warrock. You’re Subaru, right?”

“How did you...”

“Your dad might have told me a thing or two. If you want to know more, we’ll have to Wave Change.”

Subaru’s face snapped upwards, staring Warrock directly in his dark red eyes. “You know my dad? Tell me everything you know, right now. Please.”

Warrock wagged a finger. “Not so fast, kid. See, I’m an EM body. And while I am the universe’s number one tough guy, I need to combine with someone on the physical realm to bring out my true power. And that’s where you come in. Do that for me, and I might throw you a bone or two.”

The young boy walked to the rail of Vista Point. If Warrock needed him for something, then he wasn’t going to be hurt. He didn’t know what would happen if he said yes, so it was hard to say what the right choice was. In the back of his mind, he heard a voice.

Have courage, Subaru! Believe in yourself and in others. Grasp the future with your own two hands!

Was that voice… dad’s? That was right. Dad wouldn’t want to see him like this. It had been three years. Subaru had to move on somehow.

“Alright, you weird alien thing,” Subaru said. “If you’ll really tell me about dad, I’ll do what you say. Even if it means losing myself.”

“It’s not like you had much of a choice anyway,” Warrock grunted. “Take a look over there.”

Subaru glanced over to his right where Warrock was pointing. Vista Point’s old fashioned steam engine train, which was supposed to just be a sightseeing attraction, was up and moving. It lurched its way over to block off the entrance to the observation point where Subaru was. The train came to a stop, but it was still going out of control. It would be too dangerous to go near it.

“Unless you have a death wish and want to try getting close to delete the viruses in there, take this card and swipe it through your Transer.” Warrock continued. “And call out the words ‘EM wave change, Hoshikawa Subaru, on the air.’”

Warrock tossed Subaru a card with a three pointed gold crest on it, similar to the pendant that Subaru wore around his neck. There really wasn’t much time to think about this coincidence though. The young man used the card as requested.

“EM WAVE CHANGE!

HOSHIKAWA SUBARU,

ON

THE

AIR!”

Warrock turned into pure energy and raced towards Subaru like a bolt of lightning. The energy struck Subaru’s body and before he even had time to scream, his body began to change.

Over his head, there was a helmet with back facing horns on both sides and a red visor. His torso, arms and legs were covered in what looked like a navy jumpsuit with yellow line highlights and that same three-pointed crest on the chestplate. His right hand and feet were encased in a metal blue glove and metal boots respectively, while his left hand was seemingly replaced with Warrock’s head.

“Welcome to the EM world, kid,” Warrock said.  
-  
Sakuragaoka, Electopia

The circuit board from that old P.E.T Ippei had picked up was doing wonders in getting Junk up and running. Before, it was just some obsolete busted up monitor that could barely play a game of Solitaire, but now Naoto and friends thought they might even be able to tap into some of the extant internet lines.

“Just imagine what this is going to do for my resume,” Yuka said, smiling.

Ippei pointed at one of the new programs that installing the circuit board had carried over. “Naoto, check that out, that one that says ‘Rockman.EXE’. That might be what we’re looking for.”

Naoto thought Ippei might be pranking him, so he scanned it for viruses before doing anything. The program came up clean, but when he ran it, he got a pop up telling him the data was corrupted. Still, he was able to view a basic NetNavi customization screen.

The group stared at it, almost as if in awe. They remembered learning about NetNavis in history class. They were used over a century ago. What the group was doing now was basically amateur archaeology.

“Man, do we even want to touch this?” Naoto said. “I almost feel like I’m defiling a sacred relic.”

“I’m sure that whoever owned this before wouldn’t want to see it waste away like this,” Yuka said. She gave Naoto a reassuring shoulder pat.

Naoto grimaced. “Alright, then. Let’s get to work.”

* * *

Thrilling. Daring. Going to kill him inevitably. These were all descriptors of Subaru’s current feelings. Thanks to combining with Warrock, he could actually jump on those Wave Roads he had seen earlier with the Visualizer. It seemed fun on paper, but Subaru was looking at the ground below right now.

“Do you still wet yourself at night or something?” Warrock growled. “You’re a waveform. You’re attracted to the road. Electromagnetism. You can’t fall off, and even if you could, you don’t currently have bones to break.”

“Alright, but what do we do about the train?” Subaru asked.

“Get as close as you can on the wave road and then we should be able to jump into its EM space and take out the viruses inside it.”

“’Take out?’ You mean like, in person? But I don’t-”

“JUST MOVE IT.”

Subaru’s spiky brown hair was already standing on end from all the EM waves, but hearing Warrock like that almost made it fall off. Well, he wasn’t so much hearing Warrock as having Warrock transmit information waves to him, but it was the same idea. To take his mind off of it all, he simply took a step. Planting his foot on the road made him feel tingly. This transformation was weird. He couldn’t feel his left hand. All he wanted to do was go home and play Burger Quest.

He tried sucking in some air to grit himself, but he didn’t have lungs as an EM being, so instead he just started running. There was no better way to resolve oneself to getting something over with than just getting started in the first place.

The wave roads weren’t as slippery as he expected, but he did have to pick up his feet with more force than he was used to. Warrock was right about the magnetism thing. On the other hand, he didn’t feel any air resistance slowing him down, he didn’t have to breathe and he didn’t have any muscles that were starting to ache, so it was actually pretty easy. But he couldn’t help but wonder how it’d be possible for him to fight if he was still just getting used to basic sensation.

“Alright, so when we see our prey, you can point me at them and I’ll shoot them,” Warrock said, as if in response. “You should also be able to load battle cards from your folder in your Transer. Again, if the card shoots something, just point me and I’ll take care of the rest. If it’s a melee weapon, I can lock on and warp you to your target instantly. The rest is up to you, though.”

Subaru saw a six card display on his helmet’s visor. He nodded to himself. Only thing left to do was jump in. The train was below him. He had to make a scary dive, and once inside, he’d have to fight some EM viruses. As Warrock had said, he was made of waves now. What could possibly go wrong?

With a grimace, Subaru found the access point. He tensed up, bracing for impact. And then… flight.

A swirl of electrons spun around him at the speed of light, and then he was there, standing on solid ground again in an instant. Of course, he was a wave, and that was the speed that waves move. That was what he was scared of? One day, he would look back on this and laugh. Perhaps tomorrow.

The surroundings were sparse. It was just a simple blue platform in a voidlike area. The viruses were just ahead. They were little black balls with tiny feet wearing construction helmets and using little pickaxes to do some damage to the interior. Subaru cocked an eyebrow as he grew more disappointed with himself by the minute.

“Don’t let your guard down kid,” Warrock said. “They’re weak, but it’s still your first time. I’ll never forgive you if you get us killed and you’ll never learn what happened to your dad.”

Not wanting to think about which of those was scarier, Subaru used the electricity transferred from his electronic brain to select some cards to fight with. Two cannons and a mini grenade sounded like enough to work in theory…

There were three of the little viruses. The one on Subaru’s left sent a shockwave searing through the wave space. Before it hit him, he pointed his left arm at the virus. In a split second, his arm (or rather, Warrock’s head) morphed into a cannon and blasted the creature before morphing back. The shockwave was still coming.

Subaru dove out of the way and blasted the second one in the same manner. One left. One card remaining. He materialized the grenade in his right hand and threw it. It flew right over the virus’s head and kept going.

Warrock chuckled. “Your dad was never good with those either.”

“WhaAAAAHHHHHH”

The virus’s shockwave slammed into Subaru. Pain wasn’t something he could feel as a wave, but it was replaced with another unpleasant sensation. It was like parts of him were being rearranged and put back together. Was this what it meant to be disrupted?

Subaru moved left, flailing his Warrock arm about. Some shots came out. He did hit the virus once or twice but it wasn’t enough to kill it. He clenched his teeth. The monitor was ready for him to load more cards. All he saw was double vision, the virus fading in and out. The shockwave… where was… the shockwave?

Before Subaru could do anything, his hand tugged forward. The Warrock head started glowing in his peripheral vision before shooting the virus with a shot bigger and brighter than the previous shots. The virus burst into random waves.

“You’re making me consider the need for a new partner,” Warrock said. “Honestly, losing control like that after taking a single hit from a weak virus...”

“Everyone starts somewhere...” Subaru muttered. “Anyway, what happens now?”

“The Hertzes here should be able to move the train back to its original position. We’ll separate and return to the physical world.”

“Just what I wanted to hear,” Subaru said. “My bed is calling me.”

* * *

Naoto smirked. It hadn’t taken too much time, but they’d managed to modify the Rockman program into a guardian Navi for their computer. It was a hero looking character with a red suit and some silver armor plating over the chest and shoulders. It also had white boots and a ridged silver helmet with bright yellow eyesockets.

It’d take some time to see what was in store of them on the old Internet, but at least they would be free of viruses when they did it. And it’d be with the help of the hero they created out of the ashes of the old Rockman.EXE, the last NetNavi, reborn as the Electric Superhuman, Gridman.

* * *

  
NEXT TIME: A devil possesses a young man. Hell freezes over. The dance of the two brothers causes panic. An alliance is born. A passionate summer begins.


	2. Two Flavors of Bitter

Chapter 2: Two Flavors of Bitter

It was another empty evening for Takeshi Todo. The streets of Kodama were as quiet as his social life, but he felt compelled to wander them anyway just to have something to do. It was at least a departure from his normal daily routine over in Sakuragaoka. His homework was done and every time he had looked into a hobby, he ended up bored. Going out like this was the only way he could really feel alive.

As his thoughts roamed freely, Takeshi wondered why he wore his professional two-piece suit and his thick rimmed glasses every day. Who was he trying to impress, himself? Self-confidence doesn’t mean anything without a goal to accomplish or a person to show it to. Maybe it was a signal to get others to take him seriously, but evidently it didn’t have much effect.

The night turned out to be more interesting than he expected when he turned a corner and bumped directly into an elementary schooler with a red shirt and green glasses. There were distinct star patterns on the shoulders of his getup and he also wore a small pendant. Takeshi got a good look at him from the ground after Takeshi fell on his back.

“Oh, I’m sorry mister,” the boy said, glancing off into the distance.

Takeshi looked the boy over again before coming to a realization. This boy was probably the same as him.

“Young man,” Takeshi said as he stood up. “Are you also… alone?”

The boy turned his head towards Takeshi. “Kind of...”

“T-then… would you like to form a Brotherband?” Takeshi’s face reddened. He even began to sweat a little.

The boy shrunk back a bit. “I’m sorry, but I’m not… I can’t, okay? Take care of yourself, mister.”

He ran off. Takeshi stood there, frozen. His face was glued to the ground. It was as he expected. It was all fake, all of it. Brotherbands, what a joke they were. Connecting people? Sharing secrets? Link power? All lies. Not even the lowliest boy Takeshi had ever met, one who would walk alone at night in a listless manner just like Takeshi himself would form one with him.

Who could tolerate such rejection? Who could possibly be okay with having the one chance at forming even the most superficial of connections ripped away in a matter of seconds? There was only one conclusion, one answer to come to after Takeshi witnessed what he had tonight.

Justice.

* * *

At the Shou residence, Naoto was fast asleep in his bed. His little brother Daichi shook him to get up for breakfast. Naoto didn’t want to get up, though. When Daichi left the room, Naoto climbed down the top bunk and fell onto Daichi’s bed.

Naoto slumbered soundly for a few moments. Rightness of mind was always more important than food. Compare driving while sleepy and driving while hungry, right? He was doing nothing wrong.

THWACK!

A pillow hit him over his head. Naoto tried to get up, but apparently he had been tied to the bed with a towel while sleeping.

“Get out of my bed, Naoto!” Daichi’s voice cried. “You’re not gonna be late for school this time!”

“Alright, alright, I got it,” Naoto said.

Later, Naoto met up with his friends on the way to school.

“Good morning, Yuka, Ippei,” he said. “I’m still a bit tired from this morning. Daichi hit me to get me out of bed. Sometimes I think my Brotherband Brothers are better than my real brother.”

A boy in a suit walked past them, mumbling “Brothers, huh?”

They glanced at him and then continued.

“Ha! You can’t win against Daichi can you?” Ippei said. “I can’t win against my little sister Kana either. It wouldn’t be so bad if we could just tame them.”

They looked at Yuka. She stared into the sky wistfully. Naoto remembered. She had an older brother in college that he had never met, but from the way she had described her brother, he was quite the herbivore, in more ways than one.

The trio headed off to school and got busy with their day.

* * *

“So you’re an alien from planet FM?” Subaru asked. “And other FM-ians are going to attack this world through taking over the bodies of weak humans?”

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Warrock said.

Subaru fell back on his star-patterned bed. He was seriously up against the army of an entire planet? Talk about expectations. Well, it was do or die, he supposed. His eyes wandered. The posters of rockets and space stations in his room reminded him of something.

“That’s right,” Subaru said. “You promised. Tell me what you know about my dad.”

Warrock shrugged. “Who knows?”

Subaru threw out his hands. “Do you have any idea how important that is to me? You have to tell me!”

“I’ve got things important to me too, kid. I know your type. You wouldn’t help me without something to keep you going.”

“You got that right!”

Subaru threw a book this time. It passed right through Warrock, of course. The boy turned over on his bed and sighed. He was supposed to be studying right now, it being the morning, but there was a bit too much of a weight on him for him to be okay with that. He slid off the Visualizer, not wanting to look at Warrock anymore. Without those glasses on, Warrock was invisible.

Subaru’s mother, Akane, popped her head into his room. “Subaru? You have a visitor.”

“Again?”

Mr. Amachi had visited the other day, so Subaru didn’t have any idea who it could be now. There was no one else he really knew. He hoped that creepy guy in the suit from last night hadn’t tracked him down.

Warrock jumped into his Transer. “One of your friends? This, I gotta see.”

“I don’t have any friends, so I don’t know.”

Subaru headed into the living area and opened the front door. Behind it were three kids. One was a high class looking girl in a uniform dress and stockings with enormous, drill-shaped blonde curls. The other two looked like her flunkies, one fat and tall with pointy hair, the other short and nerdy looking.

Warrock snorted. “I sense an overinflated ego, dead ahead.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” Subaru said. He looked up at the girl. “Do I know you?”

The girl gave him a smirk. “Shirogane Luna, class 5-A president, at your service!” She pointed at him. “You’re Hoshikawa Subaru, right?”

“I don’t go to school,” Subaru said. He closed the door in her face.

He went back to his room, telling his mom that it was just a door to door salesman. It wasn’t really a lie. No need to go to school when he could just use the study programs at home. That girl was trying to sell him an “experience,” nothing more.

“What’s a school?” Warrock asked as Subaru crumpled on his bed again.

“A place where people learn things together in between petty social drama,” Subaru said. “I don’t need that. Being around others is annoying.”

Warrock perked up. “Ohhh? Sounds interesting. I’m gonna find a way to get you there, one way or the other.”

Subaru buried his face in his pillow.

* * *

Takeshi was up late. He sat in a musty room with his three monitors. The blinds were closed, but he still knew it was dark out from the computer clock. He had spent the last couple hours putting his genius to work, and now, his project was almost finished.

It was time for him to show the world what true brotherhood was. He had created the brother monsters, Flameler and Blizzler, and he would use them to wreak havoc on the fake world that had rejected him. However, suddenly, his rightmost monitor began to blur and distort itself. A pink void began to swirl around onscreen.

Takeshi stood up and began backing up. The door was hanging open in case he needed to run. Though he didn’t understand; he assumed his genius was such that no one would ever be able to hack him. Still, there was always someone better.

From the back of the void appeared a caped figure. The figure kept its cape draped around itself, but Takeshi could make out a mask with three ridged horns and glowing red eyes on its face.

“Young man, I sense a desire for evil in your heart,” the figure said. “You will be a most fitting servant for me, the magnificent Khan Digifer.”

Beams shot out from the eyes of the creature and instantly struck Takeshi in the face.

“AHHHH!”

In Takeshi’s brain, he felt a probe. His panic began to fade and he began to realize how silly he was being. There was no need to fear, so long as he did what Khan Digifer wanted. And what else did Takeshi live for? Carrying out Khan Digifer’s will was all there was to life.

“You will be my slave from here on out,” Khan Digifer said. “I will use your pointless hatred in order to claim this world as my own! Now tell me, boy, what is it that you have created here?”

“The twin monsters, Flameler and Blizzler,” Takeshi said in a low monotone. “I will send them into the wave roads to destroy the temperature balance across the city. Maybe even the country. I will get revenge on those who rejected me.”

“I see,” Khan Digifer said. “Most interesting. Deploy these monsters and let us see what comes of it!”

* * *

Daichi had fallen asleep ahead of Naoto. When he did, Naoto tied a towel to Daichi’s arms as some payback for that morning. Maybe that would teach the little runt a lesson. But Naoto really wasn’t in the mood for sleep. He gave Yuka a call.

“I need to cram for the next test,” he said. “Can we meet at the coffee shop near my house?”

Surprisingly, she agreed. Naoto guessed it was because it was one of the rare times he was interested in improving himself. He called Ippei and got him in on it too. After slipping out of the house quietly, he got together with the two of them and pulled up a chair at the local Matsuoka’s.

The group studied as normal high school kids would. Naoto struggled with algebra. Combining different variables just didn’t make sense to him. Yuka knew how to motivate him, though. She gave him a homemade rice cracker for every question he got right. It wasn’t long before he started to get it. It also wasn’t long before the group started to sweat profusely.

“Hey Matsuoka!” Ippei called. “Your machine isn’t out of control, is it?”

“The air conditioner is going haywire!” The manager said. “Doesn’t seem to be any EM viruses there, but it’s somehow set at over 40 C and rising! Get out before you burn up!”

The group did as instructed, but when they did, they found several other people outside their homes as well. Some were swearing that fire was blasting out of their air conditioners, others were saying they had been nearly frozen solid. Hearing that, Naoto told his friends to wait there and dashed home. Outside, he found his parents, looking grief-stricken.

Daichi was still in the house, and the door was frozen shut. And even had it not been, Naoto had tied his brother up. It was only a matter of time before Daichi froze to death. Naoto’s stomach instantly turned queasy. But, he realized, there was something he could still do.

Naoto ran back to his friends. “Daichi’s in trouble! Your families might be too.”

Ippei put a hand over his mouth. “Can the Satella police get here in time?”

Naoto shook his head. “Let’s see what we can do with Junk.”

The group made their way to the basement under the shop owned by Ippei’s parents. It was where they kept Junk. The old computer was Frankenstein’d from all different types of technology, such that it filled the entire room. Naoto even remembered attaching a bicycle wheel somewhere. They turned on the dingy overhead light in the dank place and got to work.

Although they had originally meant for Junk to connect to obsolete networks, it still, of course, had to have modern ports to actually function. And besides, there wouldn’t be much sense in scanning the old Internet and then being unable to share the findings over the wave roads. So they did a scan of said wave roads and detected a pair of anomalies not too far from Kodama Elementary. Naoto pulled up a GUI representation of them.

“What could those be?” Yuka asked. “They don’t look like EM viruses.

“They look like actual monsters smashing the hardware of whatever machine they’re in,” Naoto said. “I’ll try hitting them with a vaccine program anyway. We have to save Daichi!”

* * *

Subaru’s fitful sleep came to an end as Warrock shook him awake.

“What do you waaaaant?” Subaru asked.

“I saw you shaking pretty violently and figured you’d rather be awake.”

Shaking violently? Well come to think of it, it was… where was his winter coat, he needed it right now! Subaru threw on a shirt and a sweater and then another jacket on top of it as fast as possible and ran outside. His mother was right there with him, bolting out the door at about the same time.

“What do you think happened, little one?” she asked. “I looked all over the house and couldn’t find any viruses.”

“Beats me.”

Looking down the street, Subaru saw the girl from earlier today. She lived at the condo two doors down and appeared to be giving her landlord an earful. Her hair looked totally frazzled now. He cupped his ear with his hand.

“...hair has never been so dry IN MY LIFE!” she yelled. “And who knows how many detoxes I’ll have to go through to make up for all the sweating I did tonight? I’m going to be blotchy and disgusting for WEEKS! My family better get free rent for the next six months, or else-”

He’d heard about enough. Although if her condo was too hot and his house was too cold, and there were no viruses involved… something fishy was going on here… Subaru went around the corner of his house to get a little privacy.

“Warrock? Any of those FM friends of yours have power over both heat and cool?”

Warrock stroked his chin. “Sounds like it might be Libra’s doing, but I didn’t sense the presence of an FM-ian anywhere. It could be something else entirely. Still, I reckon we ought to check the wave road just to be sure, right?”

Subaru nodded.

“EM WAVE CHANGE!

HOSHIKAWA SUBARU

ON

THE

AIR!”

After stepping onto the wave road, Subaru saw some of the Mr. Hertzs around. They were little blue ball looking things that floated along the wave road and performed various functions. He asked some of them and they told him about the monsters they had seen tearing through building air conditioners, hopping from room to room.

Subaru stood still for a bit, and after a short while, he was able to see the monsters for himself. They were large, reptilian looking things. One shot fire from its mouth, the other shot ice. Our hero frowned and nearly turned back around and prepared to pulse out. But then he thought to himself “What would dad do?” and got ready to roll.

The boy and his alien zipped along the wave roads before cornering the monsters on the road itself in front of the Big Wave card shop. Now that he could see them better, he noticed the large spikes on their backs. A chokehold was out of the question, then. He was about to stop and ask Warrock for ideas, but his opponents didn’t have patience for such hesitation.

The monster on the left rushed him, spewing fire. Subaru blocked it with his shield. It tried headbutting him with the horn on its head. Subaru ducked, kicked it, and cartwheeled backwards. The other monster leapt at him. It shot ice at his feet, binding him in place.

Subaru was caught between the two monsters now. They both shot their breath attack at him. Before he got roasted alive, he loaded the flame wheel card. He shot it at his feet. Freedom. Using the propulsion, he leapt up and over the colliding ice and fire. He was thankful for what practice he had been able to cram in within the past two days.

As he landed, there was a set of claws waiting for him. Another duck, but he was smacked by the other monster’s tail. He fell over, but rolled back onto his feet. Fire breath, incoming. Jump back. Other monster grabbed him, swung him around, threw him in the air. More fire. He couldn’t land fast enough and was about to get fried.

Just then, he summoned a sword card. The sword swept through the fire. He carried the downward slash all the way to the fire monster. It shifted out of the way in time.

“What do we do, Warrock?” Subaru grunted. “I can barely even dodge the two of them.”

“Try to wear them down before they wear you down,” Warrock said.

The ice monster suddenly cried out behind him. Subaru spared a moment to turn his head, never dropping his guard. It looked like it was in pain. Now, to go for the kill…

* * *

“Ippei, Yuka, check this out,” Naoto said. “Look there, on the wave road. Is that a person?”

“He looks like he’s in trouble!” Yuka said.

She was right. The boy in the armor was struggling against the same two monsters they had meant to fight. As far as Naoto knew, the Satella police didn’t hire kids and didn’t have the capability to travel the wave road. Was someone else going vigilante, just like him?

“Well, if he can help me save Daichi, then I won’t complain,” Naoto said. “The vaccine program’s just about finished. Let’s fry these chickens!”

He pressed CTRL + F5. The program zipped its way over the wave road. It hit the ice monster in the back. Naoto saw it flail a bit. The kid in blue turned around and shot it some, but he didn’t have enough time to do any real damage before the two monsters were back in form and attacking him again.

“If only… if only there was something more I could do!” he said.

Suddenly, the Gridman.EXE Navi program popped up. They hadn’t had time to complete it, but something seemed to be happening to it. A white ball of light came from somewhere on the screen and merged with the Gridman model they had created. The model suddenly began to move.

“I am a Hyper Agent from the Hyper World here to arrest the interdimensional criminal Khan Digifer,” it said. “I see this program is called ‘Gridman.’ I will assume that name.”

“What are you?” Naoto asked.

“No time to explain,” Gridman said. “Take this Acceptor, press your arm into it and call out the words ‘Access Flash’. Then, we’ll be able to save your brother!”

A ray of light shot out of Junk’s screen and formed around Naoto’s left arm. It took the shape of a colorful red and white bracer. Naoto stood up. He turned around to face his friends.

“Yuka, Ippei,” he said. “I don’t know what happens from here on out. But if I don’t come back, let my folks know that I did everything I could to save Daichi, alright?”

They nodded at him. He turned around to face Junk. He held his left arm straight up. His right arm crossed over it, pressing against the bracer.

“ACCESS… FLASH!” he called.

A few yellow EM rings formed around Naoto, morphing his clothes from a button up and slacks to a blue and white spandex jumpsuit. He stared forward blankly, hands at his sides. Ippei and Yuka ran to him, but he didn’t react. His body came off the ground and dove directly into the computer monitor. Ippei and Yuka tried to drag him back out, not knowing what was going on, but the force of whatever was pulling Naoto was stronger than they were.

They watched as he came to settle in the bright yellow chamber where Gridman rested. The two turned themselves over through the air until their bodies began to superimpose on each other. Eventually, Naoto was completely absorbed into Gridman.

A popup appeared on Junk’s screen asking for an access code.

“I guess we should just go along with this, then?” Ippei said.

“I don’t know how else to get Naoto back,” Yuka said. “Let’s see, access code… Gridman?”

Yuka sat at the chair where Naoto had been and input GRIDMAN as the access code. In the chamber Navi program, Gridman floated off the ground and soared into an electronic wormhole that appeared, launching him onto the wave road.

The wormhole displayed a visual of where Gridman ended up, which was the wave road where the blue kid was fighting the monsters. As compared to everything else, though, Gridman was tiny, practically the size of an action figure. He couldn’t fight like that.

“I’ll send him a program to enlarge him,” Yuka said. “Let me just take a second to write it and… we’re off!”

* * *

The monsters were still bearing down on Subaru. Pain was starting to build in his gut very quickly. Endurance could only do so much. It didn’t work without the ability to get a hit in. He would never be able to go back to sleep at this point.

He saw a portal open on his flank. A tiny man popped out of it. The monsters stopped for a minute to look at it too. Subaru loaded a mini grenade card and lobbed the grenade at the fire one while they were distracted. It screamed and stumbled backwards. He quickly turned around and shot the ice one in the face a few times.

After that, it was business as usual. He really needed some kind of deathblow card. After this was done with, it was time to pay Big Wave a visit. This situation couldn’t be allowed to happen again. He was hoping that whoever came through that wormhole would be able to bail him out, but he shouldn’t need to be bailed out in the first place.

“Don’t give in, young man!” The tiny person in the suit called, right on cue.

A white light flew out of the portal and the tiny man took it into himself. The man took successive increases in size until he was as large as the monsters Subaru was fighting. Or about twice as large as Subaru himself, in other words.

“I’ll take the one that shoots ice if you’ll take the other one,” the man said.

“Okay.”

The man in the suit tackled the ice monster while Subaru loaded his final sword card. Flames billowed out in front of him, but Subaru simply rolled underneath the fire and cut the monster in half. The thing was already almost dead and the only thing keeping it alive was the fact that Subaru was also almost dead. Without its twin, it didn’t stand a chance.

Subaru toppled over, panting heavily. There were still no lungs in his body, but it was instinct for someone as tired as he. He lay still for a moment before using the last of his strength to sit up and watch the show. Suit man was going hard with the karate. He was punching and kicking the snot out of the ice monster. All that hard work went into throwing a soft ball for some other guy. But it was okay so long as the town was safe.

Suit man used his bracer thing to shoot fire balls at the ice monster. This stunned the monster. He then did an elaborate pose and raised his left arm.

“GRIIIDDDDDDDDDDDDDOOOOOO BEEEAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMM!”

A stream of laser power shot out of the bracer, zapping that ice monster into oblivion. Not a trace of it remained after the laser reached its feet. Subaru looked down. How much worse could the FM-ians be?

The man in the suit was doing something else. Subaru lifted his head back up to look more. The man tapped his chest with both arms and then extended them, shooting starlike rays out into the surrounding town and throughout the wave road. Subaru wasn’t sure what was happening, but if it was something bad, he wasn’t in a position to stop it.

When he was finished, the man in the suit walked over to Subaru. “Glad to meet you, young man. I am Gridman. If you don’t mind, could we speak more casually?”

“Heh, you saved our bacon, pal,” Warrock said. “We owe you that much. Subaru, we’re going.”

Warrock dragged Subaru onto his feet, moving independently from Subaru again. He was too tired to even protest. It looked like there was going to be a long night ahead of him.

* * *

NEXT TIME: Childhood regrets overwhelm us. A parent’s love is necessary. A fool takes the bait. Dreams are forever.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Car of Death

“What happened?” Khan Digifer asked. “Who were those two?”

Takeshi adjusted his glasses. “I have no idea. I didn’t even know people could walk on the wave road.”

“Find out who they were!” Khan Digifer said. “I will not stand for them interfering with my plans!”

“Yes, Lord Khan Digifer. But I want to know, was what Flameler and Blizzlar accomplished tonight not enough?”

Khan Digifer raised a hand. Lightning bolts shot out of it. They struck Takeshi like a swarm of bees.

“AGGGHHJJJHHH,” Takeshi cried.

“It is not your place to ask questions!” Khan Digifer said. “Now get to work on finding us a new target!”

* * *

Subaru stumbled over to the wall before pulsing out of the wave world. He slid down and tried to get comfortable. Gridman followed not far behind him, but what came out of the EM road leading to the monitor was actually a teenager. There were two more teenagers in front of him, a boy and a girl.

“Naoto, are you okay?” the girl said.

“Nevermind that,” Naoto said. “Is he?”

The other two hadn’t noticed Subaru until now. They glanced over and gave him some awkward looks. He grimaced.

“Yes, I’m the kid who held the line tonight,” he said.

Naoto walked over to Subaru and gave a deep bow.

“Thank you very much,” Naoto said. “We are in your debt.”

A smile crept onto Subaru’s face. “I’m Hoshikawa Subaru. I live in Kodama, near where we were fighting.”

Naoto nodded. “I’m Shou Naoto, and these are my friends Baba Ippei and Inoue Yuka. We live around here in Sakuragaoka and go to the Human Creative School together.”

Subaru was a ways from home, but not too far. Subaru and the three exchanged what information they had to each other. Naoto and his three friends didn’t know much, though, so they turned back to Junk to get some answers. Gridman was still displayed onscreen, waiting there in his yellow chamber.

“You said you came to arrest the criminal Khan Digifer?” Naoto asked.

Gridman nodded. “Just so. I was called here by your desire to protect your brother. He should be fine after I released my Fixer Beam at the end of the battle tonight.”

“Do you know if this Khan Digifer guy has anything to do with Planet FM?” Warrock asked.

“I don’t know,” Gridman said, “But I wouldn’t rule it out. Our file on him does say that he has mind control powers similar to what you described about the FM-ians. What happened today was probably his doing, so he or whoever he’s controlling will probably continue to resort to petty, mundane means of terrorism. Be on the lookout. I’ll give you a G-Call over your Acceptor there if I sense anything.”

“Thank you, Gridman,” Naoto said. “Subaru, let’s trade contact info and form a Brotherband and everything.”

Subaru waved a hand in front of Naoto. “I’m not really… ready for Brotherbands, yet. Long story. I do want to stay in touch though.”

The teenager shrugged and went along with his request. They swapped Transer numbers and parted amicably.

“More enemies to tear up, huh?” Warrock said on the way back. “Just the thought of it gets me pumped!”

Well, at least someone was happy about this. That someone was going to get thrown in a lake along with Subaru’s Transer once this was all over.

* * *

It was noon on the next day when Subaru woke up. Forget the monsters, his mom’s lecture about staying out late was so much scarier. His soul nearly left his body on the spot. After that, there was no way he was getting out of bed until late, and no way he was going to get any real work done today. Accursed light, why did it have to come streaming through the windows now?

After rolling around for fifteen minutes, Subaru got out of bed and put his clothes on. It was time to prevent another disaster. The young boy gathered up all of his pocket money and set off for Big Wave. He wasn’t hungry, so he simply waved to his mother on the way out, promising not to stay out late again.

On the way to the card shop, he was accosted by the same girl he met the day before. She came from around the corner behind the shop, one of her mooks in tow. He didn’t have any time to dodge!

“Hello again, Mr. Hoshikawa,” the girl said, throwing back one of her enormous ringlets. “That greeting is a little more than you deserve from how rudely you treated me yesterday, but I’ll let it slide.”

“What was your name again?” Subaru asked.

“WELL I NE-” she breathed in. “Okay, right. You haven’t had any friends for three years, you don’t know how to talk to people. I’m Shirogane Luna, Kodama Elementary Class 5-A President. These are my friends, Saishoin Kizamaro and, well… the one you saw yesterday was Ushijima Gonta.”

“Glad that’s cleared up,” Subaru said, walking towards the card shop. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got some business here...”

Luna moved in front of the doors, blocking his way. “I can’t believe you. Don’t you know how much of a jerk you sound like? How do you expect to make friends like that?”

“Back at you, president primadonna,” Subaru said. “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Besides, I don’t need any friends. Just leave me alone.”

“Kizamaro,” Luna said.

“What’s up, Prez?” the nerdy short kid with the glasses asked.

“Order fifteen pizzas from every restaurant in Kodama and send them all to Hoshikawa’s address,” Luna said.

The color drained from Subaru’s face. “F-fifteen?”

“This doesn’t have to happen,” Luna said. “Just promise me you’ll come to school and this all goes away.”

“Why do you even want me to come?”

Luna sighed. “It’s the struggle of a popular high school girl. I can’t have your absence staining my otherwise perfect record as class president. I’ll never be elected student council president like that.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna be a pawn in your little election scheme,” Subaru said. “Send your pizzas for all I care. I already got a name I can give to the cops.”

Subaru shoved her out of the way and entered the card shop. Kizamaro offered her a hand, which she accepted. The Prez got to her feet and dusted herself off. Just then, Gonta stepped onto the block, hurrying his way over to the other two while tugging at his boxing headguard.

“YOU’RE LAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEE!” Luna screamed. “We met Subaru again and he got away because you weren’t here. You useless dimwit! If something like this happens again, I’m cutting our Brotherband, you hear me?”

Gonta shrunk back, the confidence implied by his huge frame vanishing. “I...I’m sorry, Prez. I’ll… I’ll figure something out.”  
  
“I don’t want to hear any excuses,” Luna said.

Kizamaro adjusted his glasses. “Prez, if I may, I have a suggestion on how to deal with Subaru.”

Luna turned to him. “Oh? Do tell.”

The short boy grimaced. “As you mentioned, he has kept mostly to himself for three years. From the way he talks, he’s shut himself off relationships. To get past that, you ought to show him some sweetness.”

Luna cupped her mouth with a hand. “Y-you mean I have to-”

“No, Prez,” Kizamaro replied. “Why is your mind even going there? What I meant was that you need to show him some kindness, some human warmth to melt that frozen heart of his. We could do it too, but you’re a girl, so he’ll probably respond better to you. But yeah, the old saying was ‘you have to be a friend to make a friend,’ I believe?”

“ Hm, well, I suppose I may have been too rough with him,” Luna said. “I don’t even like how I get that mad.  I t’s  not very  becoming of a lady . I’ll see what he has to say next time. GONTA!”

“Y-yes?” Gonta said, putting down a bag of chips.

“Kizamaro just gave us a decent idea. What have you done today, and what can you do better next time? Think that over, okay? Dad is going to come pick us up for the opera tomorrow at noon. If you’re even a minute late, consider yourself uninvited.”

Luna huffed and walked away. Kizamaro followed her, but Gonta stayed behind. There wasn’t a way to come back after a blow like that. Gonta walked to the corner. He looked up at the Big Wave card shop. The cutesy little waves on the roof did little to calm his nerves.

The Prez had seriously talked about cutting their brotherband. But if that happened, then he’d be a nobody again. He’d have no friends, no goals, no meaning to his life. He’d just be a fat loser who plays video games and eats a lot. Come to think of it, there needed to be more to his life regardless of what happened.

Gonta sighed. He was strong. That was the thing he had going for him. And his only hope was taking advantage of that. Getting good test scores was out of his reach, and so was trying to be popular or coming up with some new hobby. Prez and Kizamaro were the ones that were supposed to cover that for him, be the missing pieces of his life. So he had to be strong, so he could be the missing pieces in their lives, just like he hadn’t been able to do today.

“That’s right my boy,” a gruff voice said. “What you need is strength. Strength to show that girl that you’re a man.”

A red suit of armor with a bull head shaped helmet appeared floating in front of Gonta, flames bursting out of its limbs. It crossed its arms.

“W-what are you?” Gonta said, leaning back.

“I’m someone who can give you that strength,” the thing said. “All you have to do is ask for it. Do you want to be strong, boy?”

“Uh, well, what are you going to be my coach?” Gonta asked.

The bull face snorted, billowing flames from its snout. “Of course! So, are you in?”

“Uh… sure. Where do we start?”

“WITH THIS”  
  
“AAAGGGGHHH!”

* * *

Takeshi was relaxing after school, just flipping through a digital coupon book on his Transer to see how he could plan his next meals while listening to a stream of the news in the background. With his parents gone, he had to think of ways to keep himself healthy on a budget. There was only so much money left over after buying all of his high end computers. Sometimes your principles were more important than your well-being.

Said principles had caused him to commit a major crime and become enslaved by some interdimensional demon lord. Still totally worth it. Khan Digifer’s powers of suggestion were as much of a blessing as they were a curse. If Takeshi were ever caught, he could simply use Khan Digifer as a scapegoat. Speaking of, one of the CMM newscasters was discussing his intervention from the other day. Takeshi looked up.

“...as of yet, the Satella police has been unable to determine the cause of the air conditioning malfunctions,” the newscaster said. “We now bring you live to Inspector Goyoda. Inspector, have you turned up any leads?”

“We have strong evidence that this was a premeditated attack,” a man with what appeared to be an antenna on his head said. “I can’t give you the details; it’s classified information that’s a matter of national and possibly even international security. But everyone watching at home needs to upgrade their security systems. Right now we at the force are putting together a handy guide on how to do so. Stay tuned on that.”

The newscaster glanced at what was probably the script on his desk. “So you’re saying it could have been a hacker, then? Mr. Goyoda, we’re all very concerned about this. This could become very dangerous if the hacker were to try to hijack a vehicle like an automated car or airplane. How would the Satella police respond?”

The inspector smirked. “Well frankly, we’re not even worried about that. We do a personal inspection of every commercial vehicle on the planet before it launches, and even most of the personal vehicles too. An entire department is dedicated just to that. We know how risky it can be if someone tampers with the computers in those, and so we give them the most state of the art security in the entire world. No shmuck hacker is smart enough to break into them, not even the one who pulled the stunt we’re investigating here. I’d like to see him try.”

The noise tuned out around Takeshi.

“schmuck hacker”

“not smart enough”

“I’d like to see him try”

Khan Digifer appeared on one of the other screens. “I sense a darkness growing in your heart, young man. What do you have in mind?”

“I will show the Satella Police that I am not to be trifled with,” Takeshi said.

* * *

“I can’t believe you managed to haggle that price down,” Naoto said as he rounded the corner.

Ippei grinned, looking over. “You know me, I can’t pass up the special dog.”

“Watch out!” a woman in a white dress called.

The trio nearly crashed into her with their bikes. They slowed down in time, but the woman had to stagger back a bit. Naoto immediately recognized the woman as his mother and tried to look away.

“Geez, watch where you’re goi- Ippei?” she said.

“Sorry about that,” Ippei grunted.

Her face snapped to Naoto. “Oh, Naoto? You’re supposed to be studying right now. AREN’T YOU?”

Naoto nodded guiltily.

Several hours later, Naoto was laying prone on his bed, chatting with Ippei over his Transer. They were simply discussing ideas on what they could do with Junk. He felt a tapping on his shoulder and then brushed it off. It was more important to hammer down what he needed to buy. He felt another, harder tapping. Naoto looked over and saw his father brandishing a golf club. Ippei would have to wait.

Clearly, they needed to discuss something. Naoto’s father was a thin man with a beleaguered face. Naoto knew that his dad didn’t even like to golf and was probably being badgered into it by his boss or something. The amount of schmoozing Naoto would have to do when he got older didn’t make him look forward to growing up.

The two sat on the edge of Naoto’s bed.

“I heard you skipped a class today,” Soichirou said.

“Uh, not really… well, that is… my friends asked me to,” Naoto said. “You’ve been through times like that, haven’t you dad?”

His father glanced downwards. “Well, certainly. I always do want to come back and have dinner with you and mama. But, it’s tough to say no to my boss when he asks for me...”

“Right?” Naoto said. “You see where I’m coming from.”

“It’s tough. But you need to learn how to be patient and keep up with your studies, so, you may not leave the house tomorrow.”

Souichirou grinned and stood up, twirling his golf club, making his way to the threshold. 

Naoto frowned. “That’s mean! You can’t do that!”

His father spun around. “Well you were the one who skipped class! Better think twice next time.”

Naoto fell back on his bed. Somewhere along the line he heard his brother come in and say something about there being a bad future in store for him. Didn’t he know it?

Next morning, Naoto was dutifully studying, for once. There was nothing else for him to do. He’d trip an alarm if he’d so much as set foot outside of his room. Although, he could hear his father frantically rushing around the house. Apparently he was having to get ready for a golf game with his boss, a Mr. Shirogane.

* * *

The Satella police database had been simple to crack, but Takeshi knew better to be safe than sorry. He’d been wanting to make an example of Goyoda, but there was a problem. Goyoda was busy conducting investigations outside of Kodama. It seemed that they’d finished collecting evidence on the air conditioning case fairly quickly.

The problem with trying to send his monster outside of Kodama or Sakuragaoka was that for each transfer node it took to get to Goyoda’s car, it would have a higher chance of being detected and stopped by the police before it could do any real damage. So he’d have to make due with trying to lure Goyoda back to Sakuragaoka. And fortunately, there was a good target he had in mind.

The mark was named Shirogane or something like that. Takeshi didn’t really bother remembering the name, but he did know the man practically owned the Earth Cable Network, which had broadcasted yesterday’s demeaning news report. Even if he couldn’t get Goyoda on the scene, taking down Shirogane would be almost as good as taking down the man who taunted him.

Takeshi already had a basic line of connection set up to the target’s vehicle. Contrary to Goyoda’s claims, the encryption on it had been no match for his genius. And Shirogane was supposed to be rich, too. So much for “state of the art security”. Now it was just a matter of getting the monster ready and sending it off to show that he was indeed a force to be reckoned with.

The design program came up on his screen. Displayed upon it was the angel who would avenge his pride, Sterugun. This one was another bipedal lizard. It was blue and had sinewy wings around its arms. It could fly as it wished, shoot a shockwave from its wings and emit a destructive beam from its mouth. Takeshi smirked. If the interlopers from last time showed up, they would be helpless against its dazzling aerial acrobatics.

He pressed a button and Steugun whizzed away. As did Shirogane’s plans for the morning. Takeshi leaned back. It was time to watch the fireworks.

* * *

Gonta had done it! He’d been able to wake up in time. Although, that had only happened because he’d found his copy of Burger Quest had mysteriously broken not long after he started playing it. All the same, he and Kizamaro were with the Prez and her dad on their way to the opera. Maybe today, he’d finally be able to make it up for them and show them how useful he could be.

Mr. Shirogane pulled his car over at some random house. “I’m picking up a colleague to go with me to my golf game, children. Wait here.”

Luna sighed. “Stupid dad, why can’t you spend the day with us?”

After struggling a bit, Gonta remembered that Luna’s dad was often away on business trips. Her mother was too, actually. She was free to play with Gonta and Kizamaro whenever, but that was a price she paid. Poor girl. Her dad was a mean person to Gonta too. He had scowled disapprovingly at Gonta and Kizamaro this morning and had only agreed to take them along after Luna had said that this was to teach them “culture.” The Prez sure had it rough.

A short while later, Mr. Shirogane returned with a super mild mannered looking man.

“Sorry I was late,” the man said. “My son Daichi had ran off with one of my golf clubs for some reason. Took it to the bathroom with him.”

“Maybe you should try more discipline,” Mr. Shirogane said as he started up the car.

The other man nodded. “Indeed, I had to do that for my son Naoto last night after my wife caught him cutting class. But Daichi is still too young to understand what he’s doing.”

“Hey mister,” Luna said. “Maybe I should talk with you and your wife after this. As class president, there’s someone I’ve been trying to discipline for cutting class and I could use some tips.”

The man laughed. “There’s nothing to it, you just have to make sure you show them that you understand where they’re coming from and that you’re doing it because you care about them. Deep down, people usually know what’s best for themselves, but sometimes they need a suggestion, a nudge to help them get there. That’s as far as you go, though. If you try to shove them, they coil up and strike back.”

Prez pressed a hand into her forehead. She looked kinda sad and stuff. Maybe worried? Gonta knew he wasn’t the best guy to try and go through what it was she was feeling, so he kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t easy trying to help out the Prez, but he knew how not to make things worse.

Mt. Shirogane snorted. “Is that so? In my experience, children need to see that you are firm and confident that you are correct. No one respects weakness.”

“That is important too, sir,” the other man said. “You can’t leave that part out, but after spending a lot of time with my young ones, I’ve learned that there’s more – WATCH OUT FOR THAT LIGHT!”

Gonta clutched onto the sidebar. Mr. Shirogane sped through an intersection and swerved around another car.

“THE BRAKES AREN’T WORKING!” Mr. Shirogane roared.

They zoomed around the streets of Kodama at turbo speed, unable to stop or slow down. Luna and Kizamaro were cowering down in their seats, bracing for impact. Gonta took one look at them and felt something instinctual within him. There were no sounds around him. He could hardly even see. The only thing that was in his mind was a voice, calling out to him.

“ Well my boy, it’s time, isn’t it?”

* * *

A nother history problem down. Subaru groaned as he saw another long passage ahead. Reading about these things was so boring. He leaned back in his chair, ready to fall asleep. Between Warrock’s training, these study lessons, dealing with the twin-tailed terror and his own apathy, he was feeling tired all the time now. Maybe he was just still in the adjustment phase and would get used to it all later.

Warrock decided to speak up. “So, not that I care or anything, but in the interest of humoring what your dad would probably want, I have to ask you something. You’ve had quite a few people reach out to you lately. Naoto, Luna, even that creepy guy from a few days ago. You turned them all down. Why is that?”

“I can’t bring myself to trust them,” Subaru said. “I loved dad more than anyone else in the whole world, and he broke his promise and never came back to me. I don’t want to get hurt like that again.”

Warrock chuckled. “That’s what you’re worried about? Naoto literally saved your life and you’re afraid he’ll let you down? Hahaha! You really are a riot, Subaru. I was wheezing for hours after your fight with Luna the other day.”

Warrock did have a point, but it just wasn’t that easy for Subaru to move on. If it was, it wouldn’t have already been three years. His mom had been keeping him alive every day of those three years and he couldn’t even bring himself to form a Brotherband with her. Why would Naoto be different?

Though speaking of Naoto, Subaru got a call from him just then. He decided to pick up. It could be something important.

“Subaru!” Naoto cried. “Gridman’s calling me on my Acceptor! Khan Digifer is up to something, but my parents forbade me from going out today. Do you think you could take care of it on your own?”

Subaru tensed up. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“I called Ippei and Yuka. They’re heading over to Junk now to check it out. Can you call them?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Subaru said.

“Wait!” Warrock said, his flames bristling. “You better head out, Naoto. I’m sensing an FM-ian nearby too. Smells like my old pal, Ox. We’re a little stronger than we were when we fought the last two monsters, but I still don’t like our odds in a 2 on 1 fight.”

Naoto sighed. “Alright, I’ll make my way over to Junk. It might be a bit though. I’m gonna have to get away from my mom. See you there.”

After hanging up, Subaru quickly wave changed and made his way up to the wave road. He didn’t really need to make a call; it was pretty obvious what was going on. A car was rampaging around the streets of Kodama, and Warrock said that’s where he felt Ox’s signal coming from.

“Is there a way we can stop the car from the outside without killing anyone?” Subaru asked.

Warrock sniffed about. “It seems that Ox took the car passengers inside the car’s EM network. Just stop the car from moving in whatever way you like, you won’t hurt anyone.”

After scanning the car interior, there was no evidence of any passengers inside it. Subaru checked to make sure there were no bystanders, shrugged and shot the car’s wheels. The car spun out, hit a median and crashed immediately. There was nothing else to do, so he jumped right into the network space.

Inside the car’s EM network, Subaru found a fiery hellscape. According to Warrock, this was Ox alright. Subaru had to ride a series of bull shaped wave contraptions to get from one side of the space to the other. Several EM viruses tried to delete him on the way, wearing him down a bit. Subaru had better expect this from all FM-ians, according to Warrock. They were jerks that don’t fight fair.

A bull tossed Subaru to the other side of a chasm. His waveform shook up and down while riding the things. Every time he took a step, it was like something inside of him jostled out of place. Eventually, he made it past the last one, but he was completely disoriented by then.

As his vision came back into focus, he saw a minotaur-like robot fighting with a winged creature up ahead. A small group of people was spectating the fight. Subaru immediately recognized Luna and Kizamaro, but not the two adults there. He pondered what to do. It made sense to him to let the fight continue, but it put the group there in danger. Indeed, they were having to dodge out of the way of every flame blast and laser that came their way. But he couldn’t just rescue one or two and leave the others vulnerable either. Stiff conundrum.

Subaru messaged Gridman to see where he was at. The response pinned him somewhere around the entrance to the wave space. It’d be a few minutes, but he was almost there. Subaru would have to buckle down in the meantime, though, because Ox had noticed him.

“Good of you to come and join us, Warrock!” he said. “Now, where’s that Andromeda Key?”

Ox turned away from the monster just long enough to spit fire at Subaru. The boy jumped, using the momentum to propel himself closer to the fight.

“W-who are you?” Luna asked.

“You can call me… Rock...man,” Subaru said. “You guys have to get out of here. I’ll hold these two back. Use this to protect yourself from any stray viruses.” He tossed Luna a time bomb card. “There’s a guy coming who can show you the exit. Now go!”

As soon as he finished speaking, a laser from Khan Digifer’s monster nearly decapitated him. He had to cartwheel out of the way to avoid it. As he landed on his feet, Subaru immediately thought to ask Warrock whether it was a good idea to team up with Ox to fight off the monster. Right after he had the thought, Ox nearly hit him with a flaming uppercut.

Subaru jumped back. If he wasn’t careful, this would turn into the same fight as last time. Especially since it would take a while for Gridman to show up now that he’d be busy doing some rescue work. Subaru had some new cards, but these enemies seemed even tougher than the last ones. Was there a way he could fight them one at a time?

They certainly didn’t give him much time to think. Ox covered the entire field with fire while the monster buffeted him with shockwaves from the sky. Subaru just barely managed to block it all with his shield. Then, it occurred to him. Ox was on the ground, the monster was in the sky. Ground, sky, ground, sky.

“Warrock, on my signal, I want you to bite down hard!” Subaru said.

“What? You better have a great idea, kid,” he grumbled.

Ox wound up and sped straight forward, trying to ram Subaru with his horns. The monster wound up, about to shoot its laser breath. Time seemed to slow as he let both of these things almost happen. He wasn’t really calm, but he had more or less accepted that if this didn’t work out, he was going to die. He breathed out.

And then he jumped and then he put his foot on Ox’s head and then he sprung off of it and then the monster launched its laser and then the laser just overshot Subaru and then Subaru reached forward midair and then he put Warrock’s mouth over the monster’s tail and yelled out “NOW!” and then Warrock bit down and then Subaru used his other hand to grab the tail and started climbing onto the monster’s back.

“Fancy yourself a smart one, do you Warrock?” Ox said. “We’ll see about that.”

The bull leapt at Subaru and promptly received some buster fire and wing shockwaves. The monster then tried to shake Subaru off of it, but by that point he was firmly secured, holding onto its neck. He peeked over the side of the monster’s neck and saw Ox trying to shoot flames upwards in futility. Subaru grinned and loaded an Air Spread card.

A storm of bullets fell upon Ox. The bull stumbled a bit. Ox growled and then stomped its foot, launching a flame pillar into the air right where the monster was. The monster seized its chance and turned upside down mid air. It turned at just such an angle that Subaru was over the flames as it turned. He didn’t have the time to pull his feet up, so they smacked into the flames. He yelped and let go, tumbling to the ground. The feeling of distortion was only growing.

Subaru lay in a crumpled heap for a bit. He glanced over to see Ox walking towards him. A Power Bomb card loaded. He rolled the bomb towards Ox. The blast stunned the bull for a moment. Subaru got behind Ox and locked Ox’s arms from under the shoulder. With a great heave, he managed to jerk the bull’s body over to face the monster, which was already about to fire a laser.

“You know,” Ox grunted. “I had to merge with a human to take this form, too.”

The revelation made Subaru loosen his grip a bit.That was all it took for Ox to break free and dive out of the way. Meanwhile, Subaru took a laser to the chest. He collapsed and rolled over. The visor of his helmet cracked a little. Sharp claws scraped at the inside of his torso. Needles attacked his feet as he tried to stand. His strength just wasn’t there, though.

“You haven’t lost yet, Subaru!”

Subaru looked up. Maybe his vision was going blurry, but he could swear that behind the Gridman standing in front of him was a heavenly white light. That was all gone in a moment, though, as he took Gridman’s hand and got to his feet. Their foes were still fighting as this happened, giving Gridman a chance to use his Fixer Beam to bring Subaru back to full strength. Warrock made it clear to Gridman that he and Subaru were going to get payback on Ox. Gridman agreed to fight the dragon thing when he learned it was less damaged anyway.

“Ox!” Warrock growled. “I’M YOUR OPPONENT! LET’S GOOOOO!”

The young boy charged straight at the minotaur robot and pointed his stupid overenthusiastic monster head hand right up its chest and shot and shot and shot. Ox roared and prepared to gore, but Subaru grabbed Ox by the horns. He clenched his teeth and shifted his force of gravity, pivoting to toss the the huge cow man right into the dragon monster. Subaru snapped his fingers, activating a Radar Missile card, which immediately rocketed its way into both of them.

As Gridman gave him a thumbs up, Subaru ran towards Ox at full speed and slashed him across the chest with a sword card. The vibratory clang of the hard beam against the minotaur’s metal chest resounded throughout the wave space. Finally, Subaru loaded a S ync Hook card and punched Ox in the face, knocking the bull out cold. Instantly, Ox’s body started to dissolve, revealing underneath it… the fat kid Subaru had seen come to his house the other day. What had Luna called him, Gonta?

Anyway, Subaru watched Gridman fight as he hauled the fat kid away. Gridman was having a bit of a tough time. His Spark Beam was a bit a too slow to hit the dragon. And from what Subaru remembered, he couldn’t use his Grid Beam attack without losing all of his energy. They had told him earlier that Gridman was only able to maintain his form for a limited time, so he couldn’t go too crazy with his weapons. All the same, Subaru was also limited in the number of cards he could use per battle (30), so if he could do it, so could Gridman.

After getting Gonta far enough away, Subaru joined Gridman’s side. The monster was agile, even dodging Subaru’s shots at great speed. The boy told Gridman of how he had managed to climb onto its back. They tried having Gridman vault Subaru up at an opportune moment, but the dragon had learned. It raised its tail, its legs and the rest of its body as soon as it saw Subaru go airborne.

“Couldn’t you just ask Ippei and Yuka to give you a program to make you even taller?” Subaru asked.

“I’m already pushing it at this size,” Gridman said. “But they are about to send me something. They called it a ‘special dog’?”

A rift in the EM space opened up and hurtling through it came a disc shaped object. Gridman caught it on his wrist, forming a shield. A handle stuck out of the shield. Gridman grasped it, seemingly already knowing what to do.

“PLASMA  BLAAAAAAADE !” he yelled. 

As the monster flapped in place some more, preparing to do another shockwave, Gridman held his new sword at one shoulder. When the dragon was almost completely still, Gridman raised the sword over his head, and sliced downward. A shockwave fired, not not from the dragon’s wings, but from the Plasma Blade. It flew forward at super speed and sliced one of the dragon’s wings off. The monster screamed in pain before dissolving completely. One more headache, dealt with.

Gridman raised his arms to do the Fixer Beam again, but Subaru told him not to waste his energy. This car was absolutely going to the scrapyard after this. Not to mention that the police were going to investigate it and if the EM network was undamaged, they’d be unable to find any evidence as to who was behind these monsters. The faster they could arrest the guy working with Khan Digifer, the better.

They took Gonta and left the EM network.

* * *

“So, Cepheus’s guard will stand against me as well,” Khan Digifer said. “I see. Most entertaining. I will have to prepare my own trump card, in that case.”

Takeshi wondered who Cepheus was, but knew better than to ask questions like that. “Is there anything you need me to prepare aside from a new monster, Lord Khan Digifer?”

“No, no, that will be quite enough,” Khan Digifer said. “In the meantime, I will be having a chat with a group of gentlemen who may be more powerful than your monsters. With their help, we will surely be able to win next time.”

The monitor Khan Digifer was on switched off. With trembling fingers and a malicious scowl, Takeshi pushed up his glasses. Help? More powerful? Two could play at that game.

* * *

Slowly, surely, Gonta came to. His friends all stood over him with worried faces. He could hear sirens in the background. He felt sore all over, just like he usually did whenever he spent too much time with his punching bag and then fell asleep afterwards.

“Gonta, you’re okay!” Kizamaro said.

“What’s wrong with you?” the Prez said, her eyes watery. “How could you make me worry like that?”

Gonta smiled. “You guys should know by now. I’m not just hungry for food, I’m also hungry for life.”

The brawny boy got to his feet. He looked around and saw Mr. Shirogane and the other adult making furious rapidfire phone calls. He could only imagine what kind of a mess had been made. He turned back to his friends.

“Listen, guys,” he said, falling to his knees. “I’m pretty sure everything that you saw just there was all because of me. That thing you saw today… it took control of me and went on a rampage. And it was all because I let it inside. It told me it could make me stronger, and I felt like I needed to be strong. After you said you might cut our Brotherband, Prez, I just didn’t know what to do. That thing told me it could help me show you I wasn’t useless and I just… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Gonta,” Kizamaro said. “The car started going out of control even before you changed. You actually kinda protected us when you changed by taking us into that network. See, the car’s totalled, but we’re all fine.”

“Yeah, there was that monster thing inside the network,” the Prez said. “That’s what did it. I guess you don’t remember because that bull took over. There was also a dashing hero in blue and a tall guy in red that came to rescue us. I hope I can see Rockman again someday, I never got to properly thank him. You ought to thank him too, Gonta, I saw him warp out of the car while carrying you, but he left too quick for me to talk to him.”

“Rockman, huh?” Gonta said, standing up. “Well, it sounds like things could have gone a whole lot worse than they did. We’re lucky to have a guy like him.”

“Right?” Prez said. “And we’re lucky to have you too, Gonta. Please don’t take what I say so seriously, I could never stop being Brothers with you. You and Kizamaro are both my precious friends even if I need to force your tiny brains into following the rules like proper human beings sometimes.”

Gonta’s heart felt ten times lighter at the moment. As much as things changed, it was nice to know that some things would always stay the same.

* * *

NEXT TIME: Pleas for friendship meet a complicated reality. The resolution of a young boy strengthens. The logical conclusion of solipsism arises. Trust in tomorrow.


End file.
